Tag Archives: Topic: Divorce

WTSP: “In order to get a divorce in Massachusetts, the couple has been told they must return to that state and live there for a year. But the attorneys for the two women contend one reason their request should be granted in Florida is because the state’s ban on same-sex marriage doesn’t specifically prohibit divorce.”

Lincoln Journal Star: “A Raymond woman who married her longtime, same-sex partner in Iowa in 2009 is now petitioning the Nebraska Supreme Court to be allowed to divorce. The issue of same-sex divorce has only recently begun to crop up. A total of 17 states now recognize same-sex marriage, but Nebraska is not one of them.”

Kay Hymowitz at Family Studies: “A new paper by Sheila Kennedy and Steven Ruggles appearing in the most recent issue of the journal Demography not only battles with the numbers, it kicks them and much of the accepted wisdom about divorce rates out of the house. Divorce has not gone down, they argue compellingly: it has risen to record highs.”

Religion Clause: “In In re the Marriage of Suzanne Paulsen and Timothy Paulsen, (WA App., March 19, 2914), a Washington state appeals court upheld a trial court’s parenting plan that was entered along with a decree dissolving the marriage of the Paulsens. Among other restrictions on the father, the appeals court upheld the trial court’s award to the mother, Suzanne Paulsen, of sole decision-making power as to the children’s religious upbringing.”

AL.com: “Huntsville attorney Patrick Hill said he sent a certified letter to Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange today notifying the AG’s office that he intends to challenge the dismissal of the divorce petition. Hill said his efforts are aimed at making sure his client can exercise her rights to petition the circuit court for a divorce.”

WYFF: “A lawsuit filed in Greenville this week could challenge the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Cathy Swicegood, of Mauldin, is seeking a divorce from her female partner of 13 years. But because Swicegood was never legally married, she has no legal protections under South Carolina law . . . ‘We are seeking the courts to issue an order that says both South Carolina laws that ban same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, not only under the South Carolina constitution, but more importantly under the United States constitution,’ he said.”

W. Bradford Wilcox at First Things: “There is another reason the Pope and his Church should not simply accommodate this wave: It has taken a devastating toll on the ‘least of these’—especially children and the poor. In the United States, for instance, a recent study of economic mobility for poor children in communities across the nation by Harvard economist Raj Chetty found that “the strongest and most robust predictor [of mobility] is the fraction of children with single parents.” In other words, poor children in the U.S. are much more likely to be trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty if they grow up in communities without strong two-parent families.”

Carson Holloway at Public Discourse: “Americans’ acceptance of President Obama’s lies reveals how dangerously comfortable we have become with dishonesty. It will take a profound renovation of our culture to restore truthfulness to its proper place and establish political freedom on a more secure foundation.”

Canon & Culture: “Andrew Walker discusses the article Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Regional Variation in Divorce Rates with Dr. Bradford Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies.”

Howard Fischer at The East Valley Tribune: “Legislation awaiting action by the state Senate would scrap existing laws which essentially allow a parent who has custody of a child to move up to 100 miles pretty much at will. Instead, virtually any move could trigger a court hearing. SB 1038 also would scrap a provision in the existing 20-year-old law that permits a court to take into account whether a move would be in a parent’s best interest. Instead, a judge would be limited to what’s best for the child.”

“In this article, Professor Tracy Thomas examines the various ways in which states address same-sex divorce, and highlights the different reasoning that courts have employed to allow same-sex couples to dissolve their unions, even in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage.”

Anna Sutherland at Family Studies: “While we continue to quarrel over marriage and the family, at least one facet of the debate is now nearly undisputed: that children do better, on average, when raised by their married parents than they do in other arrangements.”

Catholic Culture: “Under the amended concordat, which was signed by the apostolic nuncio and Malta’s foreign minister on January 27, ‘parties will be able to continue an action for the nullity of a marriage celebrated as a canonical marriage before the civil courts notwithstanding the fact that one of the parties may have filed an action for nullity of the marriage before the ecclesiastical tribunals after the commencement of the civil action.’”

Ross Douthat at the New York Times: “When liberals claim social conservatives don’t have any policy ideas for marriage promotion, then, they’re somewhat self-deceived. A sustained conservative shift on abortion policy and marriage law probably would, over the long term, increase the rate at which couples take vows and stay together, and improve the life prospects of their children.”

Delaware.gov: “Attorney General Beau Biden indicated today that same-sex marriages performed in Utah are valid under Delaware law: ‘Marriage equality is the law in Delaware and I strongly believe that individuals outside our State borders should be equally free to choose whom to love and whom to spend their lives with.’”

Ed Whelan at NRO Bench Memos: “Insofar as the ‘spirit’ of Windsor is that legal principle and reasoned decision-making should be jettisoned in order to advance the cause of radically redefining marriage to accommodate same-sex couples, Holder’s declaration is indeed true to that spirit.”

Ryan T. Anderson at Heritage: “The ‘State Marriage Defense Act of 2014,’ HR 3829, requires the federal government to respect state laws on marriage. The Act requires the federal government to look to the laws of the state where citizens reside to determine the definition of ‘marriage.’ It states that the term ‘marriage’ shall ‘not include any relationship which that State, territory, or possession does not recognize as a marriage, and the term “spouse” shall not include an individual who is a party to a relationship that is not recognized as a marriage by that State, territory, or possession.’”

FoxNews: Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday the federal government will recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages in Utah, despite an earlier announcement this week from the state’s governor saying the state would not.

Ed Whelan at National Review: No good deed goes unpunished. In dealing “carefully and considerately” with the chaos that Judge Shelby’s reckless refusal to stay his decision unleashed, Utah state officials should be careful not to undermine their substantive defense of their marriage laws.

AP: On Wednesday, Gov. Gary Herbert issued guidance to state agencies instructing them not recognize same-sex marriages given out during the two weeks. But, he also said benefits obtained by the newlyweds during the two weeks should not be revoked.

NewsOK.com: The group Alliance Defending Freedom, which is doing the legal work for the Tulsa County court clerk in the Oklahoma case, argued in its new brief that U.S. District Judge Terence Kern should ignore the Utah judge’s decision, made on Dec. 20 because its central tenet _ that same-sex marriage was guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution _ was unsound.

Religion Clause Blog: Following yesterday’s Supreme Court order that halts same-sex marriages in Utah while the appeal in Herbert v. Kitchen makes its way through the 10th Circuit, the status of same-sex couples who have married since the Dec. 20 district court decision allowing them is uncertain.

William C. Duncan at National Review: This morning, just a few minutes after the last submission from the State of Utah had been received, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a stay of a trial-court judge’s mandate that marriage licenses be issued to same-sex couples.

Fox13Now.com (includes video): Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and the Sutherland Institute spoke out Monday on the Supreme Court’s temporary halt on same-sex marriages in Utah.

Deseret News: A federal court ruling striking down Utah’s law defining marriage as between a man and a woman made it possible for same-sex couples to legally marry. It also made it possible for same-sex couples to file for divorce.

Huffington Post: After the couples’ lawyer pointed out the Windsor decision to Kern, lawyers for the Tulsa County clerk said the couples had overstated the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. “Windsor does not forbid States like Oklahoma from preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman. On the contrary, Windor’s (sic) repeated references to state sovereignty over the definition of marriage bolster the defense of Oklahoma’s Marriage Amendment,” attorney Byron Babione wrote.

W. Bradford Wilcox at National Review: . . . . one common and largely unremarked thread tying together most of the school shooters that have struck the nation in the last year is that they came from homes marked by divorce or an absent father.

WDAZ.com: If that same-sex marriage in Minnesota or Iowa doesn’t work out, you can always marry the opposite sex in North Dakota. You don’t even have to get a divorce first. At least that’s North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s interpretation of state law, according to a legal opinion filed Thursday. | ND AG, Letter Op. 2013-L-06 (Dec. 12, 2013)

Kelly Bartlett at Mercator Net: Have gay rights activists overplayed their hand? Will Czekala-Chatham’s wedding buyer’s remorse be followed by American voter remorse as more citizens learn of the disruption caused by same sex marriage laws passed in some states, but not recognized in others?

AP: A Mississippi judge on Monday refused to grant a divorce to a lesbian couple who got married in California, saying the marriage wasn’t recognized under state law, according to the woman who filed and her lawyer.

The Marriage Foundation: Harry Benson, of the Marriage Foundation, found that of the 51 per cent of children who will still be living with their parents at their fifteenth birthday, only 5 per cent will have unmarried parents.

NCPA Policy Digest: Earlier this year, the Fiscal Times showed that a high-earning couple, each with incomes of $400,000, would save about $27,000 annually if they divorced and filed their taxes separately.

The Independent: The number of same-sex couples ending their civil unions leapt by 20 per cent last year, seven years after their introduction in 2005. Overall there were 794 dissolutions in 2012, almost 60 per cent of which were female couples, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

Catholic Culture: The divorce rate among American Catholics is significantly lower than among other religious groups, a new study has found. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University reported that national surveys show 28% of married Catholics have divorced.

CNSNews: On the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, being married can cost you a lot. Get divorced (or avoid getting married, if you live together), and you save $7,230 per year if you are a fairly typical 40-year-old couple with kids (example: the husband working full-time, and the wife working part time, with the husband making $70,000, and the wife making $23,000).

Oklahoma Gazette: The conservative, Christian defense ministry Alliance Defending Freedom, the defendant’s attorney, asserted the sovereignty of states in deciding marriage laws. In a brief filed in response to the plaintiffs’ contention that the Windsor decision laid the groundwork for U.S. courts to assess the constitutionality of state bans, a response reads, in part: “Windsor does not forbid States like Oklahoma from preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman. “On the contrary, Windsor’s repeated references to state sovereignty over the definition of marriage bolster the defense of Oklahoma’s Marriage Amendment.”

The Grio (MSNBC): Enter the “nearlywed” couples, which a recent feature in Glamour magazine describes as “couples with all the trappings of marriage—the home, the in-laws, the shared Labradoodle, maybe even the kids—but no actual marriage certificate.” Declaring “nearlyweds” as the latest leaders in relationship trends, Glamour interviewed several (white) couples who extolled the virtues of this commitment-like, but not-all-the-way committed, phenomenon.

Sarah Elizabeth Richards at NY Times: THE end of a marriage is always sad, but divorce can be particularly devastating for a woman who still wants children but whose fertility is on the decline. Her ex may have many years left to start a new family of his own, but by the time she meets a new partner, it may be too late.

The Daily Progress: Cohabiting mothers are more likely than mothers not living with a partner to be living below the federal poverty line, Rorem said – about 42 percent of cohabiting mothers in Virginia are considered “poor” by federal standards, compared with 37 percent of single mothers not living with a partner.

Jennifer Roback Morse at Christian Post: The blogosphere has been all abuzz with reactions to Catholic intellectual Joseph Bottum’s recent meandering piece on same sex marriage. The Sexual Revolutionaries consider Bottum’s support of redefining marriage a coup, while supporters of natural marriage are naturally disappointed. But I think this article provides important clues to the way the Sexual Revolution has proceeded and succeeded.

Bloomberg: Schochet, who said he worked as a portfolio manager at Citadel Investment Group Inc. and Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) and once earned $1 million a year, has been jailed for missing court-ordered payments at least eight times in the past two years as he coped with the end of his 17-year marriage.

Australian: Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, a sociologist and co-author of the paper, which was presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in New York, said: “With siblings, you’re having to manage friendships. You’re having to navigate ups and downs with other people, and get along with someone who is not necessarily like you.”

Helen Smith at PJ Media: Add this all together and marriage is not in the cards for many men today, or is so stressful, it is only for the more educated and affluent who can delegate some of these tasks to others. With fewer career prospects and higher expectations of marriage, the average guy this age may just opt out and decide that marriage is not an option. And divorce is more expensive than ever and filled with more uncertainty for men.

Dallas Voice: State Rep. Dan Branch is asking the Texas Supreme Court to block same-sex couples legally married in other states from obtaining divorces in the Lone State State. Meanwhile, attorneys for two same-sex couples seeking divorces in Texas are arguing that under the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Texas’ bans on same-sex marriage are also unconstitutional.

CBS: It wasn’t just same-sex marriage that became legal last week, so did same-sex divorce. “To me, it was like going to Vegas — you go in, you get your piece of paper,” Dawn Tuckner said. “You come home, you have no rights.” Tuckner and her ex-partner were married in Canada in 2004. Three years ago, her partner left her and their 7-year-old son.

Democratic Underground (Dallas Voice): Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group, is defending the Tulsa County Clerk’s Office against a lawsuit involving marriage equality because a federal appeals court ruled the governor and attorney general have no standing.

Tulsa World: The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Tulsa County Court Clerk Sally Howe Smith in the lawsuit. Byron Babione, senior attorney for the alliance, said the plaintiffs have asserted in their latest filings that the Supreme Court’s ruling somehow means that Oklahoma’s marriage amendment is unconstitutional. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Babione said. “The Windsor court took great pains throughout its opinion to affirm that the states retain the prerogative to determine what marriage is.”

Daily Beast: What isn’t included in a vacation package these days? Last year, a Dutch company, aptly named Divorce Hotel, announced plans to spread their message of luxury marital splits to America—and now other companies are following suit. The Dutch business offers a low-rate, all-in-one weekend escape for estranged spouses to settle their differences once and for all. Through partnerships with a variety of hotels in the Netherlands, they bring couples to a high-end retreat for a three-day, paperwork-filled getaway. “We offer you an affordable 5 star divorce made-to-measure,” the website boasts.

Heritage Foundation: “We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison,” then-Senator Obama stated in Chicago just a few months before the 2008 presidential election.

Pacific Standard: A report out now in the journal Psychology, Crime & Law measured the impact of divorce on male offenders, by looking at their criminal activity both before and after a marital breakdown.